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Proving Ramsey's theorem by the cover set induction: A case and comparison study

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Abstract

An experiment of the cover set induction method inRRL is presented with a mechanical proof of Ramsey's theorem in graph theory. The proof is similar to the proof obtained by Kaufmann using the Boyer-Moore theorem prover. We show that this similarity is not unusual, because there is a close relationship between the Boyer-Moore logic and the algebraic specification of abstract data types on which the cover set induction method is based. (This implies that many proofs done by the Boyer-Moore theorem prover can be reproduced byRRL.) Our experiment shows thatRRL can automatically prove all the lemmas in Ramsey's theorem, while the Boyer-Moore theorem prover needs several user's hints and takes much longer (CPU time) to finish.

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Partially supported by National Science Foundation Grants Nos. CCR-9202838 and INT-9016100.

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Zhang, H., Hua, G.X. Proving Ramsey's theorem by the cover set induction: A case and comparison study. Ann Math Artif Intell 8, 383–405 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01530799

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